Vitamin D may cut heart failure risk, study finds

Vitamin D may prevent heart failure after a heart attack, says a new study published in the journal Heart Lung and Circulation.

Researchers who carried out the study, using mice, investigated the impact of 1,25D — a form of Vitamin D that interacts with hormones — on the cardiac colony-forming unit fibroblasts (cCFU-Fs)cells that form scar tissue after a heart attack.

The study was conducted by researchers from Westmead Institute for Medical Research in Australia.

James Chong, lead researcher, said: “The benefits of vitamin D are becoming increasingly known, but we still don’t fully understand how, mechanistically, it can help with heart disease management.

“We wanted to know more about how vitamin D protects the heart after a heart attack.

“This is a problem because scarring of heart tissue can reduce the heart’s ability to pump blood effectively, which can lead to heart failure.

“Cardiovascular diseases, including heart attacks and heart failure, are the leading cause of death worldwide.

“To change this, we need to research heart conditions from every possible angle. This study is the first to demonstrate the role of 1,25D in regulating cardiac progenitor cells, and the findings are encouraging.

Chong said with further study, “vitamin D could prove to be an exciting, low-cost addition to current treatments, and we hope to progress these findings into clinical trials for humans”.